[ag315]

Strategic installation of solar panels certainly helps maximize efficiency, and is in general a great idea, especially in some areas. But to your point about the space taken up by uranium and coal mines, that's only a fair comparison if you also calculate the mines needed for things like lithium, copper, etc. that would all go into a solar-oriented power grid.

[Schroedingersat]

It's not because they're no longer needed once the panel is produced. That would be analogous to the sand and copper and steel and indium and cadmium and gadolinium and chromium and zirconium and nickel and silver in the nuclear plant (and fuel cycle). All of which except silver outmass minerals of similar rarity and mining impact in the solar panel (and that is quickly changing). Even then it's questionable because most of the nuclear reactor cannot be recycled, but the solar panel legally must have recycling prepaid in many jurisdictions.

You're welcome to include mining for the entire supply chain of solar and exclude the supply chain of the generator for thermal though, it doesn't change how one sided the land use is in solar's favour.

[ag315]

"No longer needed once the panel is produced" The land used for the mining isn't land that we're just getting back--given the costs of making it useful again for anything else, space used for a lithium mine is in almost all cases essentially going to be gone for good. This is of course true for other mines as well, but your notion that lithium is an exception is a curious one.

"All of which except silver outmass minerals of similar rarity and mining impact in the solar panel (and that is quickly changing)" Nuclear reactors require relatively small inputs of these metals compared to the metals used in solar panels, and the huge capital invested in making solar panels less resource-intensive could also be applied to nuclear, if we wanted to do so.

"Even then it's questionable because most of the nuclear reactor cannot be recycled, but the solar panel legally must have recycling prepaid in many jurisdictions." But again, reactors are small compared to the millions of panels that are necessary to be the equivalent of one plant, and furthermore plenty of those materials can be and are recycled, especially in France (the entire history of the American nuclear energy program have created less waste than solar panels have in just a couple decades). And, again, innovations that make solar panels more recyclable (which we absolutely need because right now they mostly just produce massive amounts of toxic waste) could also be invested in nuclear recycling. I did get a good chuckle out of your vague "many jurisdictions" though.